SEAN HORGAN: Interior Secretary visits, talks lobsters, monuments

June 18, 2017 — It certainly was a happening time in Boston this past weekend, what with the Sail Boston 2017 spectacle out in the harbor and beyond, as well as Dead & Company doing two nights at Fenway Park, Father’s Day and the royal visit by new Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday.

The visit by Zinke, who was on a four-day New England jaunt that included a tour of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, merely ratcheted up the already incendiary debate over the means used to designate the monuments and the value of the monuments themselves.

The Obama administration earlier removed Cashes Ledge, which sits about 80 miles off of Gloucester, from consideration as a possible site for the new national marine monument, so the local debate now centers on the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

The monument, which encompasses roughly 4,900 square miles in an area south of Cape Cod, was designated last year by the Obama administration through the use of the Antiquities Act.

Now the Trump administration is reviewing all of the national monument designations since 1996 that cover more than 100,000 acres with an eye toward potentially reversing some or all.

On Friday, Zinke met with U.S Fish and Wildlife Service officials and officials from the New England Aquarium about marine wildlife around the monument. He then held a listening session with lobstermen and fishermen about the impact of the monument designation on their industry.

Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups held a rally at the Statehouse supporting the monument designations and urging the current administration to retain the protected areas.

This has evolved into an absolute zero-sum game and the divisions in this debate seem almost insurmountable. It’s hard to imagine anyone on either side willing to drop their swords in the name of compromise. They’re just too dug in.